What do car designers drive to work?

Open gallery Close News 8 mins read 31 August 2024 Follow @StvCr Assume, if you can, the mindset of somebody who spends their days creating new Bentleys. Your mission is to satisfy people who think it’s normal to pay £200,000 plus for a set of wheels but who, rather than merely requiring luxury, want cars that are more durable, more day-to -day practical and more dynamically capable than similarly priced rivals. Though these are tough targets, the general road test feeling is that current Bentleys achieve them. But how do you keep it going in future? Those of us who will never design a Bentley imagine that the creatives must need – at least part of the time – to live parallel lives to their customers in order to fully understand them: turning left when boarding a Boeing, buying suits in Savile Row and sporting Rolexes and titanium-handled toothbrushes. But is it true? Related articles Above all, what are their cars like? No single possession better illustrates the likes and leanings of a car- conscious person than the make and model they choose for themselves. To find some answers, we recently jumped at the chance to meet 30 or so members of Bentley ’s design staff at an event they called ‘Design and Drives’. It took place behind the tall and forbidding iron gates of the super-secret design studio viewing compound, which is usually used for assessing prototypes and radical paint jobs in daylight but out of the public eye. This compound is at the unimproved eastern end of Pyms Lane, the piece of former public road on the outskirts of Crewe colonised a few years ago by Bent ley when it started erecting engineering buildings on the other side of the road. Now it’s the urn of the original HQ building to get the treatment: it is being extensively renovated to house, among other things, a bigger and better design studio, complete with a ‘design garden’ on the roof. It ’s an indicator of the heavy workload of design departments nowadays that a tightish two-hour slot was allocated for Design and Drives: participants parked their cars in the compound on arrival, then reappeared around midday for a slightly extended lunchtime. I was ushered through the gates to meet organiser Steve Crowe, the studio engineering design manager who put the event together and had brought his own clean but well-used Porsche 911 (996) to take part. Back to top Crowe seems a natural-born organiser, having founded a body called PLMC (Pyms Lane Motor Club) back in 2013. Today, 450 Bentley people – 10% of the company’s workforce – belong. They hold shows, tours, driving days and weekend social events throughout the year to feed members’ love of cars. What was I expecting? Plenty of Porsches, I suppose. They embody quality, prestige and practicality just as Bentley does. But the field – both people and cars – turned out to be fascinating and far more desperate than I expected, until I remembered that one unifying characteristic of great car creators is that they draw influence from surprising and disparate sources. Here’s a flavour of the attendees… Jaguar E-Type  Robin Page  Design director Page’s beautiful red 1967 Series 1 1/2 roadster, which he has owned for about 13 years, is the opposite of a garage queen. He bought it during his first stint at Bentley, then took it to Gothenburg on the ferry when he was hired as Volvo’s design boss. Page drove it back again when he took up his current post nine months ago, reporting a high level of interest from Swedish car lovers because of its rarity. Over there, they’re more used to “big Yanks” as classics. “It was this car’s form language that made me want to be a car designer,” says Page. “I love everything about it – the haunch, the long bonnet, the short boot. I was born in Coventry a couple of miles from Browns Lane, where this car was built, and its aura affected everything.” Volkswagen Up GTI  Jack Allenet Allenet acquired his baby GTI three months ago to replace an MGB GT that was failing as a daily driver. A digital surfacing manager, he admires the Golf GTI family and especially likes the Up for its honesty and timelessness. And, of course, it drives brilliantly. He reckons it’s the recent VW model that stays closest to the values of the original Golf GTI in size, simplicity and edgy looks. He loves the tartan seats (a GTI tradition) but regrets the absence of a golf ball gearknob. Back to top Northern Light e-trike  Graham Browne  Browne not only designed and built this novel e-trike but he also owns the company that can make one for you. His Northern Light Motors “ticks away in the background” while he does his day job. Formerly TVR’s chief designer, Browne has been building electrified single-seat trikes for the past few years, showing them at places like Bicester Heritage. The one he brought to Crewe wa